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A review by trin
The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
3.0
The story of serial killer Ted Bundy, told from a unique perspective: Rule, a former cop and a crime writer, became friends with Bundy several years before he committed the main batch of murders that made him (in)famous. A large part of this book is about Rule coming to terms with that fact that the man who was her friend and this horrible murderer are, impossible as it seems, the same person. It’s truly fascinating.
It’s also really scary. Bundy’s is a horrible, horrifying story, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. I still can’t believe that law enforcement agents in Colorado allowed him to escape from jail not once but twice—the second time enabling him to flee to Florida, where he killed at least three more women and nearly beat to death several more. Christ.
In general, Rule does a good job explaining but not exploiting the terrible events, although her prose does sometimes suffer from bad true crime clichés: stuff about “the pitiless eyes of a killer” and so forth. The book’s also rather too long—I enjoyed the updates included in this edition, following how the case progressed (when the book was originally published, Bundy had been convicted of two murders and was awaiting trial for one more; years of appeals followed, and he was finally executed in 1989) and how Rule’s impressions of her friend continued to change; however, I could have done without the lengthy middle section detailing Bundy’s first stint in jail—for all that he must have had an incredibly complicated and deeply fucked up psyche, he’s not a particularly interesting correspondent, and there are only so many of his letters that I need to read.
If you’re interested in true crime, I think this is a very thoughtful, thorough example of the genre. It is not, however, for the faint of heart.
It’s also really scary. Bundy’s is a horrible, horrifying story, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. I still can’t believe that law enforcement agents in Colorado allowed him to escape from jail not once but twice—the second time enabling him to flee to Florida, where he killed at least three more women and nearly beat to death several more. Christ.
In general, Rule does a good job explaining but not exploiting the terrible events, although her prose does sometimes suffer from bad true crime clichés: stuff about “the pitiless eyes of a killer” and so forth. The book’s also rather too long—I enjoyed the updates included in this edition, following how the case progressed (when the book was originally published, Bundy had been convicted of two murders and was awaiting trial for one more; years of appeals followed, and he was finally executed in 1989) and how Rule’s impressions of her friend continued to change; however, I could have done without the lengthy middle section detailing Bundy’s first stint in jail—for all that he must have had an incredibly complicated and deeply fucked up psyche, he’s not a particularly interesting correspondent, and there are only so many of his letters that I need to read.
If you’re interested in true crime, I think this is a very thoughtful, thorough example of the genre. It is not, however, for the faint of heart.